On a recent morning, when many were sleeping in Spain, the Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli learned that the government of Daniel Ortega had revoked her nationality.
The first feeling she had was disbelief, says the writer to the voice of america by telephone, but later reflected that it was “unbridled revenge” by Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, whom he met during the Sandinista revolution of 1979, which he claims “was over” in 1990 with the elections in Nicaragua in which Violeta Barrios de Chamorro triumphed.
“It is a revenge against having realized that the people were not with them in 2018 and that rejection that was expressed in the crowds, in the streets, all the rejection that there was against that dictatorship is what has them absolutely deranged” Belle said.
But her greatest indignation, Belli explains, was to see that her son also appeared on the most recent list of exiled people. “When I read the list, I was outraged to see the name of my son Camilo [de Castro]that is, they not only attack me, but my son, that as a mother, with such a noble and good son that she has, seemed to me an act of pure and hard hatred “.
“It is a revenge against having realized that the people were not with them in 2018… against that dictatorship is what has them absolutely deranged”
Belli is one of 94 people who were ordered by the Ortega government to have their nationality annulled for alleged “treason against the homeland.” The list includes journalists, opponents, analysts and even writers like her and the former vice president of Nicaragua and Ortega’s former partner, Sergio Ramírez.
The renowned intellectual warns that in the midst of what she calls “revenge” she could lose her ownership of her house that cost her years of work. “A person my age, I am 73 years old, who suddenly tells you, ‘we are going to take away all your assets’, of course it affects you because I have a house and that house has been the product of my honest work , from my books, really that house is impeccable.”
The poet, who left Nicaragua for security reasons and remains in Spain, clarifies that her house was not acquired through “la piñata”, as the distribution of houses and goods was known in Nicaragua at the end of the 1990s. 1980, which belonged to people opposed to the revolution and were handed over to Sandinistas.
“I never piñataé, I lived in a house that the revolution gave me in the 80s and I returned it when I was able to buy my own house with my money. Yes, it seems to me an act of vandalism, of blatant robbery and that is why it bothers me “, it states.
Grateful to the government of Spain
In the midst of everything that is happening in Nicaragua, Belli appreciates the solidarity of the government of Spain, the only country in the world that up to now has announced that it is willing to grant a nationality to the more than 300 people to whom Ortega has revoked his nationality.
“As I say, solidarity is the tenderness of the people. I have it in a poem there, that is the tenderness that Spain has given us. That is spectacular and excellent. By birth, by my Italian ancestry, I have had the possibility to have an Italian passport but my nationality, which I recognize in my blood, is Nicaraguan nationality,” the writer reaffirmed.
Solidarity of presidents of Colombia and Chile
Ortega’s recent actions against his opponents have caused repudiation even from countries whose presidents represent the left, the same ideology that Ortega espouses.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric expressed his solidarity with the poet Gioconda Belli “and with all those whom Ortega has tried to deprive of their Nicaraguan nationality.”
“The dictator does not know that the homeland is in his heart and in his actions, and is not deprived by decree. They are not alone,” Boric said on Twitter.
While the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, wrote on the same Twitter social network that “Latin America must be a space without political prisoners and without social prisoners.”
“Any violation of human rights must be condemned by the entire international community. My solidarity with the 94 Nicaraguans who were stripped of their nationality,” said Petro.
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